Ms Josephine Feehily:

No. I am sorry if I gave that impression. Our competence is narrow, however. If we had solid competence, we would go into it in detail. In the next wave of reform, we have called for the authority to have very specific competence. One thing that frustrates one of my authority colleagues, for example, is that if the Garda wants to hire a clerical officer, it has to get approval from the authority but if it wants to spend €10 million on ICT, it does not. We have a very narrow competence in respect of money. We believe it should be broader and at least equal to the competence we have in connection with the appointment of clerical officers.

We would like to get into what the Deputy is talking about but we do not have the powers to do so. We made this clear in our submission to the Minister. As I said here last year, or at a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts, we have always seen this as a gap in our powers.